THE DEAL The writer-director of the 1978 slasher film will serve as executive producer on a sequel, according to Deadline.com. The horror factory Blumhouse Productions (“Paranormal Activity”) will co-finance the film with Miramax. “Thirty-eight years after the original Halloween I’m going to help to try to make the 10th sequel the scariest of them all,” Carpenter said in a statement.

THE DEAL The latest action film from Walter Hill (“48 Hrs.”) has a transgender twist. It’s about a double-crossed hit man who undergoes sex-change surgery to become a woman and then sets out for revenge. Saban Films announced Tuesday that it had acquired North American distribution rights. The cast includes Sigourney Weaver and Tony Shalhoub.

WHO Elijah Wood

THE DEAL In the wake of a comment he made about child abuse in Hollywood, the actor is now saying he has no personal experience with the matter. Wood had spoken recently to England’s Sunday Times about a scandal involving longtime entertainer Jimmy Savile, saying, “There are a lot of vipers in this industry . . . if you can imagine it, it’s probably happened.” In a statement obtained by TheWrap.com earlier this week, Wood said he wanted to address subsequent “misleading” headlines about his comments. “This subject of child abuse is an important one that should be discussed and properly investigated,” Wood said, but he added, “I have no firsthand experience or observation of the topic.”